News from the Guam Merrells, Thanksgiving Eve

 

Dear Partner,

This morning (Tuesday 11/24) I felt my chair sway back and forth and watched the computer monitor

sway like I was riding in a car. The 5.3 quake was a reminder that nothing in this world is really solid.

That is especially true with us mortals. In just over a month, we will have been serving at PIU for four years. Last March I informed my colleagues that we would be leaving Guam after the Spring Semester 2021. It was our hope that a new President would be chosen by then. The Board of Trustees has extended an offer to two fine candidates. Both have concluded, after prayer and consulting with loved ones that PIU was not the place for them to serve, at this time. Nevertheless, over the course of this tumultuous year, we have grown more sure that it is time for us to step out of this “temporary” role.

Right now our plans are to make a visit to Virginia and South Carolina over Christmas. Our plans could change, but we plan to fly home December 11, spend Christmas with all our family at Chad & Tanisha’s house, and return to Guam on January 4. We’ll quarantine in a hotel, then in our apartment. We’ll move back into 2106 S Carpenter in May. Already, our hearts feel like the shifting earth I felt this morning.

People ask us, “What’s next?” We don’t really know. We know we’ll need to do some decompressing. I have a project planned, then we hope to travel out West and see some sights we’ve never seen and some people we haven’t seen for a while. We desire to remain useful in the Lord’s work.

We greatly and humbly appreciate the support that you have shown us. We never planned to be here in this role, yet the Lord led us a step at a time. We’ll ask the mission to send you the standard communication they send to supporters of “retiring” missionaries. I guess we are re-retirees! We have some ideas about ways you can continue to invest in the work of PIU. If you ask, we’ll share.

Please join us in praise and prayer:

·         We can’t say much, but I was recently privileged to lead one of our students to the Lord. Kathy has regular opportunities for mentoring the young women here. The wife of a newly married staff couple (a PIU grad) and Kathy are good friends. We praise the Lord for opportunities to share what we have with them.  We will both be teaching a class in the Spring Semester.

·         Our little campus community has, thus far, been spared from Covid-19.

·         I hurt my finger while taking the top off of a septic tank. It looked ugly at first, but it is healing nicely.

·         Pray for the Board as they search for the next President.

·         Since it looks like we’ll finish the academic year without a new President the need for making decisions, some hard, has intensified.

·         Some of our students have been “stuck” on Guam since March. Most of that group haven’t been home this year. Mostly our students stay on our little 3.5-acre campus. Pray that good things will happen here, as well as in the lives of those whom we only see online.

·         Pray that we will finish well and that we’ll start well on whatever is next.

We thank the Lord for you.

H&K

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“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17, ESV)